Five killed, 94 injured this year due to jaywalking

Dubai: Five pedestrians were killed and 94 were injured in run-over accidents in the first quarter of the year, traffic police revealed.

Colonel Saif Al Mazroui, head of traffic police, said there were a total of 86 cases of vehicles running over pedestrians.

“In the first four months of last year, we recorded 98 accidents, where 12 pedestrians died and 102 were injured.”

Col Al Mazroui said last year police fined 64,261 jaywalkers for not using designated crossing areas. “In the first quarter of 2014, we fined 17,326 people. Time and time again, we insist the public use only designated crossing areas but it seems that it falls on deaf ears since they seem to do it right in front of police officers. We are going to apply strict measures for the public to pay attention to the dangers of crossing highways and streets from undesignated locations.”

Col Al Mazroui said he has personally seen pedestrians dashing across streets “unaware that they are sprinting towards death. They were unknowingly taking their last steps in life. A zebra crossing would be just a few metres away and they’d still avoid using it, all to save a few minutes”.

Col Al Mazroui noted that the department will be stricter in enforcing the law. “We want to ensure that the number of deaths and injuries caused by this irresponsible act will decrease. We are focusing our efforts on both service roads and main roads.”

He said that more patrol officers and plainclothes police were posted in locations where such accidents were reported to be the highest.

“They’ll be fining jaywalkers and cars who don’t give priority to pedestrians at zebra crossings.”

A special team was designated to spread awareness on streets where jaywalking was most prevalent, said Col Al Mazrouqi.

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